


Sabotage

by darkesky



Series: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Alterations [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Concussions, Episode: s02e19 Sabotage, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 13:51:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17868461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkesky/pseuds/darkesky
Summary: Jake woke up to a killer headache and a dramatic monologue. More appropriately, the middle of a dramatic monologue he desperately wished he heard the beginning of. If Hoytsman sprung a pop quiz on him, Jake was guaranteed to fail… Which was fair. He failed most pop quizzes back in high school. Jake and school didn’t really get along.The words came in a mess of slurring and mumbling. In other words, Jake was nailing this hostage situation and had a concussion. He was at least seventy-five percent sure. Eighty, if you counted the fact every light made his head pulse with heat.-Sabotage played out a little differently. Namely: Hoytsman gives Jake a concussion, and Jake becomes a bigger disaster.





	Sabotage

Jake really thought pettiness and victory could carry him throughout the entire day. He actually arrived  _ early  _ to work. Like some strange parallel world where he was Santiago and, therefore, lame. 

Then, it turned out his drug test came back positive for meth and cocaine to  _ everybody’s  _ surprise… Including Jake’s. If he was going to start bad habits, he would have picked something else. Like tobacco or cigars! True, he only tried both of them once, and both times the world spun violently like a Tilt-a-Whirl from hell, but those would be his go-to.

Since it was obvious the world conspired to screw Jake over, Holt  _ finally  _ listened to him. Not exactly  _ well,  _ but still. Assigning Diaz and Santiago to the case? Jake could clear his  _ own  _ name like a badass!

So, in Jake’s defense, he really only meant to fix his life. If he  _ happened  _ to irritate the power duo along the way, it’d be a complete coincidence.  _ (Read: Completely on purpose. If he had to go down in flames for being a druggie, he’d ensure the rest of them would want to light themselves on fire after hearing his terrible jokes.) _

Also, Jake was suspended! Of course, he made some  _ questionable  _ decisions. He wasn’t technically a cop at that moment. Should he have figured out an ice cream truck was stalking him? Totally! Should he have heard the man sneak up behind him with a gun? Absolutely? But was it his fault? Most definitely  _ not. _

At the very last second, Jake felt hot breath on the back of his neck. He tried to swing himself around and grab his assaulter’s wrists. Instead, the gun slapped him across the  _ side  _ of the head and sent him slamming to the pavement. Black spots exploded violently across his vision. The last thing he spotted before he  _ completely  _ passed out was…

Hoytsman. Shit.

-

Blood coagulated on the side of his head, some of it stretching down his neck. His mouth tasted vaguely like festively flavored pennies, the flavor probably being death. His eyes clouded over and refused to focus. A dense fog filled his head no matter what he thought about.

All in all, what a  _ great  _ day.

Jake woke up to a killer headache and a dramatic monologue. More appropriately, the  _ middle  _ of a dramatic monologue he desperately wished he heard the beginning of. If Hoytsman sprung a pop quiz on him, Jake was guaranteed to fail… Which was fair. He failed most pop quizzes back in high school. Jake and school didn’t really get along.

He blinked and interrupted the speech. “I didn’t expect you to be the one sabotaging me.”

The words came in a mess of slurring and mumbling. In other words, Jake was  _ nailing  _ this hostage situation and had a concussion. He was at least seventy-five percent sure. Eighty, if you counted the fact every light made his head pulse with heat.

“You ruined my life! I just want to pay you back! God, you weren’t even paying attention!” Hoytsman groaned and paced slightly. “I went to the trouble of writing this  _ epic  _ speech since you’re all tied up and waiting-”

“There  _ has  _ to be a better way to say that,” he muttered.

Hoytsman frowned. “I’m more than just my body, Jake.”

“I… Don’t doubt that.” Maybe it was the concussion, or maybe it was because Hoytsman was still on cocaine, but he couldn’t make out the heads or tails of this conversation at  _ all.  _ In fact, he could feel the color draining from his face and a cold flush settling over his features and…

Oh, he was puking. That made a lot more sense.

After his breakfast sat  _ fully  _ on his lap and dripping off his legs, Jake gagged again. “Sorry, gimme a sec.”

“This is  _ disgusting.”  _ The man wrinkled his nose at Jake, waving his hands in the direction of his  _ former  _ breakfast burrito. If he looked closely enough, he could see the red and yellow of the Fruit-By-The-Foot and… Nope, bad idea. He almost started dry-heaving just by the sight of that. “I live here!”

“In… In an ice cream truck?” Jake stammered.

He nodded. “Pay attention to my amazing speech!”

“Next time you kidnap someone… Don’t hit them in the head. It makes it hard to concentrate.” Jake doesn’t know what to make of Hoytsman nodding sincerely like he  _ genuinely  _ took the advice to heart. You know what? Jake was going to pretend he didn’t even notice that. He’ll be in jail soon enough. His friends will come.

-

Here was a fun plot twist! His friends  _ didn’t  _ come within one hour. After that, he lost track of time because his head was swimming too badly to make out the heads or tails of his surroundings. At one point, he thought he saw John McClane. 

He almost drifted out of his daze and straight into sleep when the door to the ice cream truck slammed open. Jake barely managed to loll his head upright and squint at the newcomer. “Where‘ve you been?”

“Creative genius takes work! I figured out a  _ foolproof  _ way to make sure you pay attention to my writing.” He beamed. Jake blinked as the words started to settle. Then, his eyes lazily drifted over to the giant cards Hoytsman had clutched in his hands. 

He offered a shaky smile. “Can you  _ believe  _ I never learned how to read?”

“Liar,” singsonged Hoytsman. He started dragging the camera in front of Jake, positioning it carefully so the drying puke wasn’t displayed at all. Jake wondered if he still had some in the corner of his mouth. But he definitely wasn’t going to test that theory… If it was still there and he couldn’t taste it, then thank God.

Then, big, blocky words consumed his vision. “See, okay, I have made the  _ perfect  _ narrative. You, the big bad cop, forced me, the innocent and dashing lawyer, to commit all these heinous crimes. Who doesn’t love a corrupt cop?”

“Uh… America?” 

Hoytsman made a face, disappointed. Then, he gestured down at the cards. “Read it carefully, okay? I spent a lot of time on this.”

So, with stuttering words, Jake read through the ‘script’. None of it  _ really  _ made sense. How did he  _ force  _ Hoytsman to do drugs? That literally couldn’t happen unless he practically forced…

Hoytsman snapped, startling Jake back to consciousness. “No sleeping!”

“Sorry… Um…  _ Which is why I’ve decided to take my own life…” _

Well, shit. Panic managed to overtake the oppressive fog in his mind, and Jake babbled out some nonsense about not having to go through with it. They made an odd combination. A concussed cop and a high lawyer… If anyone else was in this conversation, they definitely wouldn’t be able to process what was going on. To be fair, Jake barely could.

When Hoytsman leaned down to snort his line of cocaine, Jake took his shot. “Hoytsman!”

“Hm-”

_ Wow! That was a not good idea!  _ The second his head collided with the man’s nose, a stabbing pain ripped through him. Jake would know. After all, he  _ had  _ been stabbed. Gritting his teeth, he allowed the adrenaline to propel him out the back of the truck… Before being reduced to a turtle.

Sometimes, Jake was a genius.

And sometimes, Jake assumed chairs break epically as they crash against the pavement. When they didn’t, he got greeted at gunpoint before being dragged, once more, into the ice cream truck of doom. (The name wasn’t the greatest, but it was  _ true.) _

-

Jake wasn’t a doctor, but he had a feeling he should be able to remember why he was trapped in an ice cream truck. Every once and a while, it flew to the forefront of his mind. Then, it slipped through his fingers faster than he could possibly figure out. He’d reach out before the bindings to the chair forced him back down. Huh, when did he get kidnapped?

The man in front of him was ranting about something, but his hearing kept cutting in and out. When there was a sharp banging against the side of the metal, he tried to lift his head. Hoytsman glared at him before walking over. 

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to an Amy Santiago who was practically glowing. Jake smiled dopily. “You got your wings.”

“What does that mean?” Amy glanced up at him, a surprising amount of concern written across her face. He opened his mouth silently before burping up a few more strings of vomit. Amy made a face. “Ew, okay. Vomit on someone else.”

“If you vomit on me, I’ll hurt you worse than Hoytsman,” Rosa said as she walked in front of him. She cocked her head slightly and when Jake tried to copy the gesture, he winced at the sudden weight on his temple. “You have a concussion. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

“Nah, I’m not,” slurred Jake. 

Amy lifted an eyebrow, unimpressed. “My ‘wings’?”

“Like an angel.” To illustrate his point, he imitated a harp. Rosa and Amy both exchanged looks. While Rosa pressed her lips together to resist a smile, Amy let out a tiny giggle. Then, both women went to work getting him off the chair where Hoytsman bound him. 

Amy, as she began to free his arm, glanced up and grinned. “So I guess you’ll still be spending time off work, Peralta.”

“Drugs are a bitch,” Jake proclaimed.

Rosa let out a grunt of agreement. “I’m glad you got off cocaine, Jake. It’ll be nice to have you back on the force.”

“But the meth…” said Amy. “That’s gotta be harder to kick than anything else.”

“Yep,” Jake laughed.

-

From his office, Holt couldn’t hear any loud noises. Usually, by ten in the morning, Peralta almost broke something, and everyone got upset. Sometimes, it was Terry shouting or Amy freaking out. Holt glanced out the window to be met with most of his detectives work diligently. 

While he shouldn’t doubt a good thing, he got to his feet. “Sergeant Jeffords, where is Detective Peralta?”

“Concussion,” called Diaz. “You should have gotten his email.”

“Grandma Peralta strikes again. He hit reply all,” Gina cackled from her desk. She cleared her throat and started reciting the words from her screen.  _ “‘Dear Captain Golt’...  _ That was  _ his  _ typo by the way…  _ ‘I’m not on cocaine. I mean, I drank Coke. The soda kind. Not the drug kind. Can you drink powder Coke? Ohmigod, we should test… But legally.’” _

“Is Peralta hungover, and that’s why he cannot attend work?” Holt inquired before the rest of the email can be detailed. 

Sergeant Jeffords shook his head. “Major concussion. The doctor didn’t clear him for work because he isn’t coherent.”

_ “‘Anyway, I can’t, like, see my keyboard. So I’m gonna sleep. Love you, Jake.’”  _ Gina leaned forward and glanced at the screen. “Winky-face.”

“‘Love you’... He really does view you as a father figure,” Boyle commented.

Holt glanced at all of them before nodding. “Return to work. I will be enjoying this Peralta-free day-”

“Oh, look, Jake emailed again!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have fallen into the b99 fandom, so I might just write some oneshots altering episodes because IT IS SO GOOD!! Jake Peralta had this nice little trio of angst episodes, and I'm looking forward to writing Amy and Rosa and.... I LOVE THIS SHOW


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